Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery: A Novel

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Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery: A Novel

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Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery: A Novel This brief, beautifically crafted novel introduces one of the finest contemporary Arab novelists to English-speaking audiences. In it, Bahaa' Taher, one of a group of Egyptian writers--including the Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz--noted for their revealing portraits of Egyptian life and society, tells the dramatic story of a young Muslim who, when his life is threatened, finds sanctuary in a community of Coptic monks.

It is a tale of honor and of the terrible demands of blood vengeance; it probes the question of how a people or nation can become divided against itself.

Taher has a magical gift for evoking the village life of Upper Egypt--a vastly different setting than urban Cairo and a landscape that tourists usually glimpse only from the windows of trains and buses taking them to the Pharaonic sites. Here, where Christians and Muslims have coexisted peacefully for centuries, where the traditions of the Coptic Church are as powerful as those of the Muslims, Taher crafts an intricate and compelling tale of far-reaching implications.

With a powerful narrative voice and a genius for capturing the complex nuances of human interaction, Taher brilliantly depicts the poignant drama of a traditional society caught up in the process of change.

From the Inside Flap
"Taher is by far the best and most original contemporary Egyptian writer."--Muhammad Siddiq, University of California, Berkeley

"It is a compelling and fascinating book, written in a direct and terse style by a writer who paid attention to his world and saw its limitations clearly but who remembers it with nostalgia and affection."--Segno Sette

From the Back Cover
"Taher is by far the best and most original contemporary Egyptian writer." (Muhammad Siddiq, University of California, Berkeley)

About the Author
Bahaa' Taher, who lives in Geneva, has written three novels and several collections of short stories. This novel, his most recent, is the first to appear in English. Barbara Romaine teaches Arabic at the College of William and Mary.

Read Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery: A Novel Online

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Contents:

    * Map of Egypt
    * Acknowledgments
    * Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation
    * Glossary

    * Introduction
    * 1. The Miqaddis Bishai
    * 2. Aunt Safiyya
    * 3. The Outlaws
    * 4. Al-naksa
    * 5. Epilogue

"A dramatic and horrifying story. . . . The entirely personal and private flavor of it takes its strength from the vignettes of the main characters–the half-crazed Safiyya, the soberly liberal-minded father, the principled old priest. Simply told, without adornment or much authorial intrusion, this is a brief tragedy with resonances wider than its village setting."–New York Times Book Review

"Aunt Saffiya and the Monastery portrays a remarkable and genuinely harmonious relationship between Muslim inhabitants of a village near Luxor and the monks residing in a nearby Coptic monastery. . . . The translation is faithful to the original. . . . [Romaine] is to be congratulated on her accomplishment." –World Literature Today

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